


Mythology

by Skylark



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: HeartGold & SoulSilver | Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver Versions
Genre: Character Study, Community: pokanon, F/M, Falling In Love, Fictional Religion & Theology, Found communities, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Legendaries, Legends, Mt. Shirogane | Mt. Silver, Mythology - Freeform, One of My Favorites, Pokemon Battle, Pokemon Kink Meme, Protectiveness, Romance, Sickfic, Survival, Trainer-Pokemon Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-23 17:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6124056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silver doesn't believe in legends and fairytales. Leaf is going to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mythology

**Author's Note:**

> The [original prompt](http://pokanon.livejournal.com/517.html?thread=2341125#t2341125) was "Leaf/Silver. Several years after the games, Silver goes to Mt. Silver to challenge Red, but Red is long gone, and there is a young woman there instead. Upon discovering how incredibly talented she is, he gets a feeling he has never had before." I didn't follow the prompt exactly, but the spirit of the thing is hopefully close enough!
> 
> This fic took me over five years to write. I started working on it January 20, 2011, and finished it on February 27, 2016. I decided to finish it in time for Day Six of [Pokemon Fanweek](HTTP://pkmnfanweek.tumblr.com) for the "mythology" prompt.

This is how the story begins:

Once upon a time, when the world was covered in darkness, a young boy appeared in crimson and white. Warriors and villains alike fell before the silent child. He conquered what there was to conquer, bowed his head to receive the name of champion—and then he disappeared.

On still nights, they say, when the moon is full, you can hear the crack and roar of battle echoing on the winds off the mountain. But the child is long gone. The mountain is sacred and none dare to ascend it, and even if you stood at the summit, there would be nothing there.

But that's only how the story begins.

\--

Ethan's voice is broken by static and backed by the loudest, most oppressive silence Silver has ever heard. "I did it," he says, choked with awe, "I beat him," and before Silver can ask what the hell Ethan is talking about, the line goes dead.

Ethan has always been a little weird, he tells himself, prone to disappearing and reappearing in the oddest places. These days he has been vanishing for long periods of time, training. For what, Silver isn't sure—he's been champion for two years already, isn't that enough?—but he doesn't ask. Instead, Silver trains in the Dragon's Den and on Victory Road, whichever dark, drippy place suits him better on any given day, and tries to figure out how far he's come. (It's never far enough.)

After a month, he finally tries to call Ethan back, but doesn't get a response. He rolls his eyes and calls Lyra, who is delighted to hear from him and invites him to New Bark Town for a cup of tea.

"No thanks," he sighs, and waits for Lyra's tiny, disappointed "Oh." before he says, "But you can come to Blackthorn City if you want. And bring Ethan, if you find him," he adds, hoping he sounds nonchalant.

"—But I thought he was with you?" she stammers.

"What? No, he's not answering my calls."

"Oh. That's not what I—um, that's very bad, I'll see you tomorrow okay!" she says in a rush, and hangs up before he can say anything else.

\--

Lyra sits across from him in a small cafe in Blackthorn City, and Silver remembers that he's never had much patience for girls. There's nothing _wrong_ with them, exactly, but they're loud and skittish and they read too much into things. When Silver talks to girls they always expect him to figure out what they're thinking.

"What is it?" he demands at last, tired of watching her fiddle with her teacup.

She doesn't look up, and her voice is small. "You really haven't heard from him in a month?"

"Do you think I'd lie about that?" he snaps. "No." Then, more quietly, "I don't know where he is."

"He was talking about Mt. Silver," she says thoughtfully. Silver sits up at once.

"What?"

"I talked to him a few months ago and he said he was thinking about visiting Mt. Silver to pay his respects. He stopped calling as much after that." She frowns. "He never stops calling." And that, at least, is true. Ethan calls him about as often as Lyra does, which is about once a week, if not more.

"It's like a ghost story," she murmurs, and Silver's eyes narrow. She knows that he's about to scold and so she rushes to continue: "You know, a young boy journeys to a sacred mountain alone, and—"

"It's just a mountain," he interrupts. Lyra looks a little affronted.

"It's _sacred_ ," she repeats.

"It's a pile of dirt," he says, rolling his eyes. "Besides, if he believes in stuff like that, why did he go there?"

"I don't know," she mutters. "It's not like him."

The rest of their meal passes in relative quiet. "I'll get the tab," he says as he gets to his feet. "Don't thank me."

She frowns. "I wasn't going to. You invited me."

Silver has never been very good at reading people.

\--

He didn't expect Mount Silver to be this cold. He feels like he should be measuring the temperature in Kelvin.

He struggles for half an hour and then realizes his fingers are turning blue. "To hell with this," he mutters, and he summons his Crobat to fly back to Viridian.

\--

It takes him a few days to gather the proper equipment.

He climbs and climbs after Crobat flies him as high as it can, and he makes it halfway before the altitude catches up with him. He collapses into a snowbank for the thousandth time and gasps for air, feeling like he's about to pass out. He fumbles for Alakazam’s poké ball, and he can't really tell when they teleport because the world started spinning ten minutes ago.

\--

Silver's never been a fan of the cold: it makes everything complicated. Silver doesn't like complications, which is why he's never been a huge fan of friendships, which is why the few friends he _does_ have are precious enough that he'd climb a creepy, haunted frozen rock for them.

But first he tries to call again. "Ethan," he growls at his friend's voice mail, "If you're up on that stupid mountain, I am going to kick your ass." Ten minutes later, "Ethan, you better have a good reason for doing this." An hour after that, "Ethan, call me—just call me;" and a day later, "Ethan, Lyra's really worried about you."

After two days and "Okay, Ethan, _I'm_ really worried about you and you need to call me before I do something we'll both regret." He tries to climb the mountain again. But slower this time.

He grinds his teeth, frustrated by his protesting muscles and general inability to use his hands through thick woolen gloves. He's so cold he can't even shiver anymore; he tells himself that it's a good thing since it means he only has to grab for things twice instead of three times.

Night is falling by the time he makes it to the cave at the top, covered in ice and too exhausted to be angry. He staggers towards to cave, half-blind in the gathering dark, and falls to his knees once he’s inside.

He hears the sound of footsteps and tries to catch enough breath to tell Ethan off, but blinks when he sees two neat white shoes in front of him. Two neat, white, _feminine_ shoes.

His eyes trail upwards. Loose socks—an expanse of bare leg that makes him blush—a short skirt and tank top, and amused blue eyes.

"If you're looking for him, he's gone," the young woman says. “Sorry.”

Silver stares at her for another moment, his mind crowded with questions like _Who are you_ and _Why aren't you frozen to death_ and _How do you know Ethan?_

In the end, all that comes out is "What."

\--

She sits across from him with her arms folded, watching Silver with amusement as he devours the food she's given him. Between them is a small but roaring fire, courtesy of her ninetales.

"I'm Leaf, from Pallet Town," she says. "I'm a friend of Red's."

"So?" he grumbles, finally warm enough to work his jaw properly.

Her eyes widen. "You don't—you're not looking for him?"

"Have you seen a kid named Ethan?" Silver says. "Black hair, gold eyes, backwards cap? Johto Champion?"

"Ethan?" she says, peering at him more closely. "Wait, you're Silver, aren't you?"

His head snaps up.

"Yeah, you must be Silver," she muses, settling back. "Ethan left when Red did, a few weeks ago." Her expression softens at the look of hurt that crosses his face before he can stop it. "You came all the way up here looking for him?" she asks.

"I guess I shouldn't have," Silver snarls, reaching for his bag. "Guess he was fine."

"He wasn't," Leaf says quietly, and Silver’s hands still. "He was worse off than you. Red took him down the mountain to get—"

Silver's already on his feet and bolting out of the cave entrance before Leaf finishes her sentence.

He doesn’t get far before he falls, gathering a mouthful of snow for his trouble. He can hear Leaf yelling as she chases after him, and moments later she’s yanking him to his feet.

“You _idiot,_ ” she shouts into his ear, “Do you _want_ to die?” and drags him backwards so powerfully that his feet leave sliding marks in the snow as he tries to keep his balance. Ninetales gallops towards them, its body glowing with an unearthly light. Once it’s close enough to cast a glow for them to see by, Silver is startled by how quickly his footprints are obscured by the swirling snow. 

He’s tempted to go limp in Leaf’s arms out of spite, but even when half-frozen he’s not stupid. Instead, he tries not to wince when she heaves him onto her ninetales’s back, and the two of them bring him back to the cave.

Ninetales provides a warm backrest as Leaf tucks blankets in around him, her movements efficient and annoyed. “Don’t move,” she snaps at him once she’s done. Silver is starting to shiver in earnest now, and his teeth are chattering too hard to manage a response.

He closes his eyes, but snaps them open again when Leaf says, “Drink this.” She forces the cup to his lips and he swallows to avoid choking. He nearly chokes anyway at the overwhelmingly bitter taste, but she keeps at him until he’s finished it all.

“What was _that_ ,” he says, then spits to the side in an attempt to clear the taste from his mouth. Leaf makes a face.

“Heal Powder tea,” she says. “It works for people, too. It won’t kill you, at least.”

He glares at Leaf, but he’s too tired to move, if he’s honest. The ninetales behind him is radiating a steady warmth that’s seeping into his bones, unwinding his muscles against his will, and he can feel the tea thawing the lump of cold in his chest.

“You need to rest,” she tells him. “I’m here, don’t worry.”

He wants to tell her that her presence is the _least_ of his concerns right now, but Ninetales nudges him, bumping his head so that it’s resting against her flank. He can feel a soothing rumbling beneath his ear, like a distant hearth, and his eyes start to close without his intention.

He fights to keep them open, and sees Ninetales’s eyes glowing slightly. _Hypnosis,_ he thinks dazedly before he passes out.

\--

“You are a horrible patient,” Leaf tells him.

“You’re a horrible _nurse,_ ” Silver spits. 

It’s no surprise that he’s fallen ill after that much physical exertion in that much cold, thin air, and Leaf has taken it upon herself to mother him back to health. Her ninetales is perpetually at his side, warming the bedroll that Leaf has tucked him into. The girl herself keeps forcing him to drink horrible concoctions—some made from herb packets that she claims come from the Cianwood pharmacy, and some from bunches of herbs gathered from the mountain itself. “Red’s been living on this mountain for years,” she says. “He learned how to take care of himself using what the mountain gave him, so he gave me these before he left.” At Silver’s blank look, she raises an eyebrow. “He may be the champion, but he’s human too, you know.”

“A human without taste buds, maybe,” Silver mutters. He snatches at a piece of bread, winces at how cold and hard it is in his fingers, and realizes that his only choices are to break his teeth on the crust or soak it in the herbal tea Leaf’s prepared for him. When he looks up to glare, she smiles sweetly back.

“I found some honey to put in it this time,” she said. “It should go down a little easier.”

It’s worse—the cloying sweetness sticks to the roof of his mouth. She laughs at his curses. “You _must_ be feeling better,” she says.

He winces as he swallows, feeling the softened bread press against his inflamed throat, but a second later the thick honey mixture makes his esophagus feel anesthetized. For a moment, his default grimace changes to one of surprise. 

“You know,” she says, watching him eat at a speed too rushed to be healthy, “You’re not superhuman, either. You’re sick. You’ll get better at your own pace.”

“I have to find Ethan,” he says between bites.

Leaf sighs. “He’s being taken care of at the hospital at Indigo Plateau. They’re keeping him for a little while longer, but he should be fine.”

The bread pauses halfway to his mouth, and hovers there for so long that Leaf looks over worriedly.

“I’m going to kill him,” Silver growls, finally. His voice sounds even more threatening coming from raw vocal chords.

Leaf laughs. “I would, too,” she says. “Ethan doesn’t look before he leaps, does he? But you know,” she says, reaching out to pat his shoulder, “I could say the same for you.”

When he stiffens at the contact, she pulls her hand away, although she doesn’t apologize and her facial expression doesn’t change. She stands, straightening her skirt. “I’m going to go out for a bit,” she says. “Try to rest, okay?”

After she’s vanished into the depths of the cave, he rolls onto his back and sighs. His pokégear says that he’s been here for over 24 hours but he still can’t pick up any reception. Silver wonders if Lyra’s worried about him, and after a moment, he flings a hand over his eyes and groans.

He stays like that for a while, his mind wandering in increasingly self-flagellating circles, before he hears a low bark. He splits his fingers to peer through them, and sees that Ninetales has brought over two charred sticks from the fire. As Silver looks on, Ninetales begins to draw a grid with jagged, uneven lines. When she’s done, she sits back and looks at him expectantly.

After a moment, his eyes widen. “Oh,” he mutters, and true to his word, he draws an _O_ in the center of the grid. Ninetales gives him a dog-like smile and leans over, scraping an _X_ into the upper right corner.

By the time Leaf comes back, the floor is covered in grids and Silver has charcoal in his hair. “Oh, good, I was hoping you’d make friends,” she says. “Maybe you’re not so bad, after all.”

Silver has spent the last few hours observing Leaf’s ninetales—the elegant arch of her neck, the shine of her coat, the gentle way she lifted the stick with her mouth and handed it back to him when it slipped from his fingers and rolled out of his reach. Ninetales is a picture of health, well-bred and well cared for, and she trusts him in a way that means she’s never been mistreated.

Silver rests a hesitant hand on Ninetales’s shoulder, and receives an affectionate nuzzle in return.

Maybe Leaf isn’t so bad, either, he thinks. Maybe.

\--

“Let’s play a game,” Leaf says. Silver pulls his eyes away from the snowstorm outside to look at her. She’s smiling at him, head propped in her hands, elbows propped on her knees. Leaf usually leaves the cave before Silver wakes up, but she's stayed with him today.

“I'm not in the mood,” Silver says. He’s been playing games with Ninetales every day, and he’s growing tired of being distracted. His mind has been wandering to Ethan and Lyra all afternoon.

Leaf doesn’t seem to hear him. “I ask you a question, and then you ask me a question. First one to chicken out of answering loses. What do you say?”

“That’s not a game,” he mutters. “That’s an interrogation.”

“It’ll be fun!”

“For _you_ , maybe.”

She shifts her weight so that she’s sitting with her knees tucked together against the floor, and leans forward, resting her weight on her hands. “Oh, come on, don’t be such a sourpuss.”

“No personal questions, then.”

Leaf pouts. “But those are the best ones!”

Silver doesn’t answer. He just rolls over so that he’s facing away from her and glares at the wall. After a moment of silence, Leaf sighs from behind him.

“Why won’t you let me ask you any personal questions?”

“Is that your first question?” he says, not turning.

There’s another pause. Silver’s lips quirk in a humorless smile.

“Sure, I guess,” he hears Leaf say from behind him.

“My personal life is none of your business.”

Leaf hums. “We’ve been together for a week,” she points out. “I think we should be at _least_ on friendly terms by now.”

Silver’s shrug is jerky, annoyed, and the conversation lapses. His fingers drum against the stone floor, and the soft sound is buried under the crackling of the fire and the lowing of the wind outside. He expects her to say something any minute, something glib and light-hearted and nosy, but she doesn’t say anything at all.

Finally, he turns to see what’s taking her so long, his shoulderblades thumping against the makeshift mattress before he rolls onto his other side. Leaf is staring at the fire and looks up when he glares at her. Her smile comes slowly, and her eyes fill with warmth; the expression changes her face from its ordinary youthfulness, makes it lovely. Silver swallows and breaks eye contact.

“I was waiting,” she says. Her voice is amused, but she doesn’t laugh. “It’s your turn.”

Silver’s had his question ready for days now. “What are you doing when you leave the cave?”

“I don’t leave the cave,” she replies mildly, but she's looking at the fire again. 

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t leave the cave,” she repeats, “but it’s huge. The tunnels extend for miles through the whole mountain. Red told me that pokémon probably hollowed it out years ago.”

“I thought he didn’t talk.”

“He doesn’t talk _much_ ,” she says, “But once you get to know him, he’s actually a chatty gossip.” Silver stares at her. Leaf smiles sheepishly. “It’s a joke one of my friends says. Never mind.”

Silver’s expression doesn’t change. “So where are you going?”

Leaf looks away again, blinking, and Silver’s eyes narrow. “I’m just exploring,” she says, too lightly. “Looking around the caves, seeing if there’s anything interesting. I found some interesting gems that a friend of mine in Hoenn—”

Silver rolls to face the wall again, his angry movements limited by the sleeping bag he’s still wrapped in. It takes him a good fifteen seconds before he’s turned away from her, and his anger builds because of how long it’s taken him to make his point.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

Leaf's poker face is nothing compared to the people of his childhood, he thinks to himself.

After a moment, he hears her voice again. “Your turn,” she says, sounding hesitant now. Silver curls up, jamming his hands under his cheek, and says nothing.

There's another brief pause before he hears her shift behind him. “Silver,” she says softly, and he twitches a little at the use of his name. “I just want to get to know you.”

“Don’t bother,” he grumbles.

\--

By the next day, Silver’s feeling well enough that he’s hobbling around the cave, the sleeping bag unzipped and draped over his shoulders. His joints feel stiff from disuse and he looks out at the snow almost longingly, his breath curling white in the air.

Ninetales has left with Leaf for once, so he’s alone. He could leave if he wanted to, and part of him definitely wants to. But he’s still got a rasping cough that rattles his bones, and he’s not sure how far he'd get down the mountain before passing out, so he reaches for a poké ball instead. 

Crobat flings itself at him in an awkward hug and Silver topples over onto the bedroll, clutching at his pokémon in a belated attempt to keep his balance. Crobat's wingbeats make his ears pop as it tries to slow their fall, but it doesn't help much, and they end up sprawled in a flailing pile of limbs.

“Get off,” Silver rasps, but his pokémon just nuzzles against his cheek, chirruping anxiously. “Crobat, I can't breathe!”

It pulls away at that, blinking at him. Silver lies flat on his back, arms and legs spread like he's making a snow angel, and blinks back. His pokémon doesn't look any worse for spending that much time in its poké ball, though it shifts its weight with restless agitation, side-stepping down Silver's body to examine his chest, then his legs.

“I'm fine,” he says. Crobat jumps at the croaking sound of his voice and turns to stare at him. Silver meets its gaze, then blushes slightly. “...Well, I'm not dead, anyway. Listen, I want you to do something for me.”

Crobat perks up at that. It shuffles back to stand by his head, peering down. “There's another trainer here, a girl with a white hat and long brown hair. She's in the caves back there somewhere.” His pokémon's eyes follow Silver's gesture to the mouth of the cave tunnel. “Can you go find her?” Crobat nods. “Good.”

Crobat hesitates, then bends down to plant a whuffly kiss on Silver's forehead. It ducks back before Silver can react and powers into the air. The high-pitched shriek of its supersonic vibrates the air before it vanishes into the dark tunnels.

“Stupid bat,” he mutters, but his lips curl into a fond smile.

Without Crobat it's cold again, even with the fire close by. He shivers, scooting backwards to lean against the cave wall and covering himself with the fallen blanket. After another moment of thought, he calls out Sneasel; he shouldn't have to worry about an ice-type catching cold.

The two of them sit and watch the whirling snow outside, listening to the soft crackling of the fire, until Silver slips into a light doze.

\--

“Is this one yours?” Leaf asks him a few hours later.

Silver jolts awake to see Crobat launch from Leaf's shoulder and flop down beside him on the ground. To her credit, she automatically shifts her weight and widens her stance so Crobat's takeoff doesn't unbalance her.

“Yeah,” Silver says, sitting up so he can scratch behind his pokémon's ears. Crobat purrs, leaning against his side, which is when Silver realizes Sneasel is gone. When he calls for him, Sneasel comes bounding in from outside of the cave, shaking frost from his fur. Leaf watches as the pokémon trots over to bump his head against Silver's hand.

“You've got some interesting pokémon,” Leaf says. Silver looks up to see her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and he frowns.

“Well, I _do_ have all of Kanto and Johto's gym badges,” Silver mutters.

“Huh. Did you challenge the Elite Four?”

Silver shrugs.

Leaf kneels down and reaches out to rub Crobat's belly. Instantly it flops onto Silver's lap, stretching out so that she has full access. “You don't see too many trainers with crobats,” she comments. “It's a lot of investment into a pokémon that most people dismiss. But the end results are worth it—aren't you?” she coos at Crobat, and its eyes close happily in response. 

Silver's hands are combing through Sneasel's snow-tipped fur, but they slow and eventually stop as he watches Crobat's blissful expression. He reaches over to gently tweak Crobat's ear. “Hungry?” he asks it once its eyes open. At the answering nod, he turns to his pack to dig out some food. Crobat rolls to its feet and Leaf leans back, watching the two of them. Sneasel also moves closer, never one to turn down a meal.

“I'd like to battle you when you're feeling better,” Leaf says.

Silver pulls out two battered silver bowls and fills them with pokéfood, shrugging again. “I'm not as good as Ethan.”

“But I bet you work harder.” 

He turns at that, halfway through filling Crobat's bowl. Leaf's smiling at him—not flirtatiously, like he expected; she's smiling the way Lyra smiled at the jigsaw puzzle he gave her for her birthday last year, like she's unraveling a secret. “I think Lance mentioned you once,” she says. “He said you were a good kid.”

“I'm not a kid,” he snaps.

“We're all kids,” is her calm reply.

Sneasel nudges Silver plaintively, and he finishes filling the bowls and sets them down. “You must be a good trainer, too, if you're friends with Red,” he says.

Leaf glances at him, smiling faintly. “You think so?”

“I mean, there's Green, who was the former champion,” he continues, “and Ethan, who's the current one, who I guess is friends with Red, right?”

“Yeah, they're friends,” she says slowly. “I hadn't really thought about it—Ethan just...showed up one day, Red said, and then he just kept coming.”

“That sounds like him,” Silver mutters. “So what about you? You're from Pallet Town—you must be as good as Green, at least. Did _you_ challenge the Elite Four?”

Leaf shakes her head. “Just the gyms, even when I visit other regions,” she says. “I don't want to be champion or anything. It's not like I need someone else to tell me if I'm doing things right—my pokémon do that. I just want to learn more about pokémon, and train them, and battle with them. I want to know how other people think about them.” She tilts her head. “I just want to get to know _you_ ,” she says again, softly.

This time, Silver doesn't have a quick response. He looks back at her, studying her as blatantly as she's studied him for the past week. She quirks an eyebrow and lets him stare.

“You made friends with Crobat,” he says.

“You made friends with Ninetales,” she retorts. “Besides, Crobat is easy to get along with. You have a good partner,” she says, but she turns a little towards Crobat when she says it, so he's not sure who she's talking to. Silver feels himself color a little anyway, and frowns when she notices it and smiles.

“Tell me about Crobat,” she says.

“It's kind of a long story,” he mumbles. “And boring.”

She lies down on the stone floor beside him and folds her arms behind her head. “I think I've got time,” she says.

“Only if you tell me about Red,” he says. Leaf blinks at him, and then grins.

“Why, are you jealous?”

“No! I'm just—I was wondering—”

“It's fine if you are. Everyone's jealous of Red,” she says, her tone carefully careless. Silver glances up, intrigued, but her voice evens out as she continues to speak. “Sure, I'll tell you about him if you want. He's not going to steal your best friend, though,” she says, “if that's what you're worrying about.”

“I'm not,” he mumbles.

“Okay,” Leaf replies, which surprises him. When he looks down, she's closed her eyes and her face is peaceful.

“You're not going to—?”

“I believe you,” she says, and from her tone, she's not lying. “So was Crobat your starter? How did you meet?”

Silver sighs. “Union Cave,” he begins. “I found it in Union Cave.”

\--

The following weeks pass more quickly than the first. Leaf and Silver spend most of it talking, watching the snowdrifts as they gather more and more thickly outside the cave mouth.

He calls out his feraligatr once, but the large pokémon is lethargic in the cold, looking miserable even when huddling close to the fire. Silver lets him stay in his ball after that.

Like most good trainers, Leaf has the ability to take in a whole situation at once and seamlessly adapt to it, but unlike most trainers, there's a sharp edge to her regard. He soon realizes that she's a person who's never satisfied, who never settles for less—she likes to pick at things from every angle until she knows them inside and out. It's not murkrow-like, like Lyra, who's attracted to shiny new things constantly but soon loses interest in most of them; or as focused as Ethan, who cares about a few things very deeply. Leaf wants to know about everything and, it seems, everyone, including red-haired kids who are too stupid to realize that scaling a mountain isn't all it's cracked up to be.

At first, he's nettled by Leaf's questions. “I'm not that interesting,” he grumbles.

“Are you serious?” is her frank answer. “You're _really_ interesting! Clair wouldn't even let me into the Dragon's Den and they let you _train_ there? Tell me about it—do dragonites really live in there?”

He never tells her much about his childhood, and after her first few attempts to broach the topic are met with several hours of angry silence, she learns to leave it alone. Instead, they talk about pokémon battle strategies, training methods, and eventually, the adventures they've run into on the road.

“You've been to Mt. Coronet, too?” he says, cupping a warm bowl of stew in his hands.

“Red isn't the only mountain expert around here, you know,” she says with a laugh. “I spent a few months there, back when I was doing the Sinnoh gym challenge. There's a lot of...” and Leaf subsides suddenly, looking at the fire.

“A lot of what?”

Leaf looks up again, blinking. “Lots of people, more than you'd expect,” she says. “Trainers in Sinnoh use Mt. Coronet to train on, like some other people we know. Red said that Ethan spent a lot of time training on Mt. Silver's lower slopes.” She chuckles. “I can show you a few tricks, if you'd like. Diamond dust conditions are great for learning how to fight in low visibility.”

“Sure,” Silver says, lying with his head pillowed on his bag and his hands folded over his stomach. It's the most comfortable he's felt around another person in a long time.

The conversation lulls. Leaf loves to talk but she also allows for periods of silence, which is something that Silver appreciates. (“Picked it up from Red,” she'd told him when he mentioned it. “I certainly couldn't have learned it from Green.”)

Leaf's head tilts upwards, as if she's listening to something, before she stands. “I'm going to go out for a bit.”

“Where?” he asks, surprised by the calmness of his voice.

She pauses to look at him—not her usual glance, and not even the inquisitive, prying gaze that he's been subjected to so often the past few weeks. It's a hard stare, as if she's trying to see inside of him. 

He tenses and struggles to sit up. _“What?”_

“Ethan trusts you,” she says. “Claire and Lance do, too.”

Silver doesn't know what to make of that, so he frowns.

Her head turns back towards the depths of the cave, briefly, before she looks back at him. “Will you promise not to tell anyone?”

“Depends on what it is,” Silver says, bristling. “I don't clean up after anybody.”

“It's not bad,” Leaf says, holding her hands up. “It's just—a little dangerous, especially if word gets out.”

“Word of _what?_ ”

Her head jerks slightly, as if she's stopping herself from looking over her shoulder again, and she sighs. “My pokémon is calling me. I have to go _right now,_ but I promise I'll tell you once I get back. All right?”

“What's to say you'll come back?” Silver snaps.

“All my stuff is here.”

Silver rolls his eyes. “I know you don't care about material stuff,” he reminds her, calling out Crobat and struggling to his feet. “I'm coming with you.”

Leaf's look sharpens. “I can't let you do that.”

“You were going to tell me anyway,” he points out.

Leaf tenses, then rubs at her temple. “Fine,” she snaps, glancing at Crobat. “Bring him to the same place you found me, okay?”

With that, she turns on her heel and sprints towards the back of the cave.

\--

It's dark, and Silver breathes hard as he clambers over rocks and squeezes past stalactites. Crobat's been down this tunnel before, and warns him of the worst dangers with soft squeaks and chirps. Together they make their way into the depths of the mountain.

As he goes, the air grows gradually warmer until Silver is swiping sweat away from his forehead. The cave brightens, too, with wavering light.

When he steps into the chamber at the end of the passageway, a battle unfolds before him. A gallade leaps backwards to stand between Leaf and her opponent's rhydon. The light Silver's been following seems to be spilling from an entranceway behind Leaf and her pokémon, silhouetting them in a flickering orange glow. She's pulled a cloak from somewhere, and her posture is tall and straight, more imposing than he realized she could be.

“Horn Drill!” the other trainer shouts, and rhydon charges forward. Leaf's body sways wordlessly to the right and at once Gallade is a blur of motion, bowing beneath the driving horn and slashing at the rhydon's belly with leaf-green blades of light. The other pokémon roars in pain and falls back one step, then another—and when it reaches a certain distance, Leaf's body snaps straight again and the gallade retreats.

“Begone,” she calls, and the chamber changes her voice to an eerie echo.

The trainer calls back her rhydon and sends out other pokémon—froslass, houndoom, ampharos. Gallade strikes them with leaf blades, confuses them with psychic blasts, and slows them with shields of light. Whenever Gallade's opponent retreats a certain distance away from the entrance, he leaps back and his attacks cease. It's an amazing display of restraint.

Leaf says nothing throughout the entire battle, directing her pokémon only with gestures of her hands and body. Gallade, too, is silent, and it lends an unnerving solemnity to their side of the battle. The competitor he's watching now is far removed from the light-hearted girl Silver has spent the past few weeks with, and though he knows better, he feels a prickle of unease at the back of his neck.

Their challenger pauses with a frown, her hand on a last poké ball. “Who _are_ you?”

“Begone,” Leaf says again, “and you will not be harmed.”

“I didn't come all the way up here just to turn back now!”

“Defeat me or go," Leaf replies. "The choice is yours.”

The other trainer steps backwards, biting her lip, before she tosses out her last pokémon with full HP.

After that, Gallade shows no mercy, lashing out with flurries of punches and kicks no matter how far his opponent retreats. One pokémon drops, and then another. By the fourth one, the girl raises her hands in surrender.

“You're tough,” the other girl says, her tone grudgingly admiring. “I'll be back, so you better be ready for me!”

Leaf nods, and Gallade raises his arm-blades in warning.

Only when the other girl has left the cave does Leaf relax, pulling back the hood of her cloak and smiling at Silver. “What do you think?” she says. “Pretty impressive, huh?”

Crobat flies over to where Leaf is kneeling by her Gallade, treating him with a full restore. Silver trails after his pokémon, saying, “Is all of that really necessary?”

She sticks her tongue out a little, grinning. “Well, Red didn't say I _couldn't,_ ” she says. “If I'm here, I might as well have fun with it, you know?”

“I thought you said you didn't want people to know about this. That's only going to make people talk.”

“It's a holy mountain! It'd be weird if I acted _normal,_ ” she retorts, brushing her skirt as she gets to her feet. “Ready?” she says to her gallade, and when he nods, she recalls him to his poké ball.

“So that's what you're doing? Battling trainers?”

“In Red's place, yes,” she says. “But that's not the only thing I've been doing.” She pauses, then says, “You never promised not to tell anyone.”

“I don't really do promises,” he grumbles, but his attention has been caught by the genuine worry on her face. He's never seen her look _vulnerable_ before, and it's a jarring juxtaposition to her battle minutes prior. “...Fine,” he concedes. “I won't tell anyone.”

Leaf's posture relaxes. When she smiles at him, Silver's frown eases up a little.

“I'm starving,” she says. “Let's go back, and I'll tell you.”

She takes his hand, leading him the way they came. Silver looks down at their linked hands, but doesn't pull away.

\--

“There's a girl," Leaf begins, “who lives at the edge of the world, and she cries, and her tears form the ocean, and her sobs cause the storms.

“There's a boy who tries to gather enough sun to dry her tears. The sunlight he's gathered has soaked into his body and given him wings. He tries to get close to the sun but he can't fly high enough, so the girl cries forever, wrapped in a cloak he’s woven from his own feathers, dyed silver and blue by her tears.

“They say a long time ago, the sun was brighter than it is now, and the girl's tears were almost gone. The rivers ran dry, and pokémon and humans suffered alike. Realizing the danger, the other gods sent three birds—one to watch the girl, one to distract the boy, and one to steal the extra sunlight and hide it in the darkest, gloomiest place it could find.

“The third bird refused to go underground, because it couldn't bear the confinement. Instead, it found a lonely mountain, and hid the fire inside a storm.” She lifts a handful of powdery snow; with a flick of her wrist, it dissolves into the wind sifting through the cave. “That's why Mount Silver is sacred, you see. It's where the fire is hidden, in the one place Ho-Oh can't fly because the storms are too strong.”

“That's just a child's story,” Silver says. “Ethan caught Ho-Oh and Lugia, years ago.”

“Yeah,” Leaf says. “Why do you think he kept bringing them here?”

Silver's eyes widen. “You mean that idiot actually _believed_ —”

“I don't know what Ethan thinks,” Leaf interrupts, lifting a hand. “All I know is that Red tried to convince him to stay away, and he couldn't.”

“Red was protecting Moltres?”

“Those two are—old friends,” Leaf says, carefully. “Red keeps the trainers who climb the mountain busy, and in return Moltres keeps these caves warm. But it's not just that.” Leaf lifts her head. “It wasn't Ethan's place to interfere.”

“You actually _believe_ all this—”

“That's what Red said, anyway,” Leaf sighs, interrupting him. She gets to her feet, stretching her arms above her head to loosen her shoulders. “Boys,” she mutters. “They're impossible.”

“I could say the same for _you_ ,” Silver shouts after her, but she just steps out of the cave and disappears into the snow.

\--

He spends the rest of the day thinking, putting the pieces together. Ethan's been coming here for months, Lyra said—bringing Ho-Oh and Lugia to Mt. Silver, wanting them to meet Moltres. Red must have been defeating him all that time, fending him off. At some point, he must have learned who Ethan was and what pokémon he had in his possession. Ethan spent his time training. Then he called Silver, and then—what?

Why did Red have to escort his best friend down the mountain? Did Ethan really manage to find an ending to that old wives' tale? Was it all...true?

“I'd like to see Moltres,” he says to Leaf the following day.

Leaf's eyebrows lift. “I'll go with you,” she says, and Silver doesn't protest.

\--

Leaf leads him into the cavern that she defended so fiercely the day before, and without warning he finds himself face-to-face with the legendary bird of fire.

His body feels pummeled by the intense heat. The bird itself is crane-like, with a narrow beak, thin legs, and wings that seem too long for its body. Its outline is blurred with flames, from its shimmering red crest to the orange fire that flicks along the edges of its primary feathers.

It rears up and flares its wings, and for the first time, Silver understands the meaning of the word _sacred._

“It's okay,” Leaf says to it. “He's my friend.”

Silver stands stiffly straight and makes no sudden movements. It's not his first time encountering a dangerous wild pokémon, though it is the first to also be a creature of myth. His pokémon are in their balls as Leaf suggested, so as to seem less threatening, but without them he feels defenseless.

The bird doesn't move any closer, but it cocks its head this way and that, examining him with eyes like live coals. It could kill both of them in an instant. Why do Red and Leaf think that such a dangerous creature needs _protection?_

“Go on,” Leaf says, her voice gentle. “Say hello.”

Moltres hops from one foot to the other, and then lowers its head. Silver bows back before he can stop himself, a jerky movement from the waist. Leaf grins.

“See? Friends,” she says. “We're going to call out our pokémon, all right?”

Moltres takes another shuffling step, backwards this time. Giving them room, perhaps? Leaf doesn't seem concerned, so Silver takes a breath and calls out his Alakazam. The two pokémon regard each other warily, but when Ninetales appears, Moltres's defensive posture eases. 

“Translate,” Silver says to his pokémon. “Did you see Ethan?”

Moltres's answering movements are sinuous, dance-like. Alakazam projects images to Silver's mind's eye: Ethan, wide-eyed, clutching a poké ball in his hand with Red at his side.

His next question is immediate. “Did you hurt him?”

Moltres gives a hissing cry. Silver flinches back and Alakazam growls a warning, but Moltres doesn't move closer—instead it retreats, pressing itself against the wall of the cave.

Silver's mind fills with a vision of Ethan releasing Lugia, the wind from its wingbeats making its trainer take a step back. Moltres screamed, spreading its wings and lashing out with fire as it drew back. Lugia roared and lunged forward, and even the remembered echo of its psychic strike makes both Silver and his alakazam wince.

The rest of the memory is shaky, blurred. Ethan falling; Pikachu leaping between the two legendaries as Red catches Ethan, pulling the poké ball out of his hand; Lugia disappearing in a flash of light.

Silver shakes his head. If Moltres did hurt him, it wasn't intentional, at least. “Ethan's an idiot,” he mutters. Then another question comes to mind. “Are _you_ hurt?”

Moltres shakes its head.

Silver folds his arms, resting his weight on one leg as he thinks.

“You don't like people, do you,” he asks.

The images Alakazam passes him are blurry, flickering too quickly for him to hold onto: fleeing from place to place; being hunted for its feathers and fire; dodging clouds of rocks, arrows, and poké balls. Years of caves and stone instead of open air. Then an image of a boy in red and white, and nothing.

Silver swallows, thinking.

“I don't like people either,” he says, his voice rough. “They're always finding more ways to hurt you.” His eyes find Leaf, standing a respectful distance from both of them. “But some people are all right.”

She gives him a quick smile, but says nothing.

“I'm sorry about Ethan,” Silver continues. “He's stupid, but he didn't mean to cause trouble.” he frowns, scratching the back of his neck. “He won't try a stunt like that again any time soon, though. Not if Lyra and I have anything to say about it, anyway.”

Moltres clacks its beak and then bows again—but deeper this time, head low and wings spread. Silver presses his palms together and bows back.

\--

Silver doesn't know how to say goodbye. 

After a month on the mountain, he's come to realize it has lessons tucked into every surface, from the challenges of its snow-blasted exterior to the legendary pokémon at its heart. The pressures of the world feel less distant at Mt. Silver's summit, too, an extended version of the feeling that sometimes strikes in the dragon's den on his best days. But he was able to keep up with his pokemon again when they trained together the day before, and he knows he's recovered his strength. And he can't stop thinking about Lyra and Ethan, even though Leaf said she managed to get a message to them somehow. His real life is there at the base of the mountain, waiting for him to recollect the scattered threads.

He wants to leave, but the sight of Leaf sitting across from him at the fire—the content curve of her lips, the relaxed way her eyes flick to him every now and then in a silent, _oh, there you are_ —dries the words up in his throat. 

Leaf wishes him good night eventually, her voice carrying gently over the wind outside the cave, and tucks herself into her bedroll. Silver stays up a bit longer, watching his window of opportunity closing. If he doesn't force the words out of his mouth now, he's never going to. But as he imagines the disappointed look in her eyes, and the thought that he might never see her again... anxiety sits heavy in his throat, and he stays silent.

Before he can start to berate himself for his cowardice, Leaf's ninetales nudges him in the shoulder and breaks him out of his thoughts.

Ninetales's eyes are luminous in the firelight. She nudges him again, gentler, and he shifts over to allow her to settle at his side. He strokes his fingers through her warm fur and she sighs, resting her head in his lap.

It's easier to get the words out like this. "I'm leaving tomorrow," he tells Ninetales. He doesn't know if Leaf is awake or not; the steady rise of her breathing beneath her blanket doesn't change. 

Ninetales whines softly, but doesn't move from her spot. "I don't—" he starts, before he realizes he doesn't know how to finish the sentence. He tries again: "I've met a lot of people since starting... whatever this is," he says, gesturing to the poké balls on his belt. "I wouldn't care if I never saw most of them again. But Leaf is an exception."

Ninetales rises with a brush of her cold nose against Silver's cheek. Silver watches as she goes to Leaf's bag and paws through it, returning with a small battered notebook. Silver opens it, finding a hand-sharpened pencil tucked into the spine, and sifts through pages filled with notes, sketches, and contact information for dozens of trainers around the world.

Ninetales pushes at his hand, stilling his movements so that he pauses on a page with the bottom half blank. "You want me to write something?" he asks. In answer she nudges at his hand again, harder this time.

The pencil feels clumsy in his left hand, so he takes extra care to make his handwriting legible. _Silver_ , he writes, and then his pokégear number. He hesitates before adding: _Indigo Plateau, Mondays-Wednesdays. Dragon's Den, Tuesdays-Thursdays._

"If she gets angry at me for digging through her stuff, tell her it was your idea," he mutters as he returns the pencil back to its place and gives the book back to Ninetales. "But... thanks."

He swears Ninetales _winks_ at him as she takes the book from his hands. Silver finds it easy then to tuck himself into his sleeping bag, his mind light with a feeling of tentative promise.

\--

Crobat and Gallade have a brief discussion before Leaf heads towards Moltres's cave for the day. Gallade doesn't look back as he trots after his trainer, and Silver feels a flash of gratitude.

When he starts to leave through the cave entrance, Crobat stops him with fretful claws that catch on his shirtsleeve. Instead of going back the way they came, Crobat leads him to a path that utilizes the mountain's internal cave system, shielding them from the elements most of the way down. It's still cold and drippy and awful, but it's not nearly as bad as it was to scale the outer rock. "Was this what you were talking about with Leaf's pokémon?" he asks, and Crobat chirps its assent. 

Silver shakes his head and mutters, "Did _everyone_ know we were leaving?"

When he makes it down from the mountain, it seems like everyone in both regions has noticed that he was gone. Even the pokémon center nurse in Viridian City lights up upon seeing him: "Everyone's been worried about you!" she says, taking his poké balls with her usual brisk efficiency and placing them in the healing machine. "I'm glad to see you're all right."

Next he calls the Elite Four to find out how Ethan's doing, and nearly goes deaf in one ear from the sound of all their voices at once. "It's good to hear from you," Bruno is saying while Koga says, "Are you all right?" and "I told you he wasn't dead," Karen is saying in the back. Then Lance's voice cuts over all of them, telling Silver that Ethan's already been discharged from the hospital and is back with his family in New Bark Town, and that he's glad Silver's returned from the mountain safely. "Please come visit as soon as you have the time to. We'd love to see you," he says before the line goes dead.

Silver flies back to New Bark Town and storms into Elm's laboratory with a lecture on his tongue, only to have it knocked out of him by the force of two bodies hugging him with all the force they can muster.

"Silver!" Lyra is saying. "Leaf said you were okay, but we've been _so worried._ "

"I'm sorry, man," Ethan says. "I didn't think you'd come _after_ me."

When Silver manages to pry them off of him, his voice is gruff but suffused with gentleness. It's a bad habit, he thinks, one he's picked up from all that time with Leaf. "Stupid," he says. "Why wouldn't I come after you?"

"Well, you…" Ethan kicks a toe against the ground. "I mean, I don't know, you always act like we're bothering you when we call and stuff. I really am sorry, though."

Silver stares at him for another moment before he pulls him into a hug of his own, not as tight as Ethan's but no less fierce. Lyra squeezes into the hug too, and in a moment Lyra and Ethan are laughing into his ears, telling him how glad they are to have him home again. He feels his cheeks burn and ducks his head, hiding his face in the press of bodies against him.

\--

It seems word of his adventure has gotten around the whole region. Clair and her family want to see him, too, and even more distant acquaintances like Eusine want to grill him about his long visit to the sacred mountain. When Silver visits the Viridian Gym, Green insists on battling him first, but afterwards brings him to his office and listens to him talk over mugs of hot cocoa.

"Yeah, that's Leaf," he says after Silver tells him about her battling theatrics. His voice is fond and frustrated all at once. Silver knows exactly how that feels. "She does what she wants. What did you think of her?"

Silver stares at his mug, tongue tied. "She's very strong. Her battle style is amazing," he manages, and Green lets out a chuckle that turns into a sigh.

By the time he's finished with all the visits and traveling, he misses Mt. Silver's silence so much that it almost aches. He visits the Dragon Den and stays there for longer than usual, sleeping on a familiar bedroll, recovering from all the socialization with the damp silence and the comforting routine of training, then resting, then training again.

After two weeks he hears the sound of footsteps. He looks up, wondering if it's someone from the dragon clan checking on him, only to freeze when he sees a white hat perched on a familiar fall of gray-brown hair.

The first thing Leaf does is stick her tongue out at him.

"Your info was wrong!" she says. "You didn't say where you'd be on the weekends, so I ended up going to Indigo Plateau first. You're a hard guy to track down, Silver."

"It's Friday," he points out. "Though I'm not usually here on the weekends either. I just needed a... break, after everything."

"So what do you normally do on the weekends?" she asks, moving closer. His eyes rake over her features, surprised by how comfortable it feels to have her in his personal space like this. The smile hovering around the edges of her mouth is as predictable as it is lovely.

He shrugs, his gaze jerking downward. 

She chuckles at the gesture and takes his hand. Without thought his fingers curl around hers, holding fast. "Well, here's what you're going to do _this_ weekend," she says. "You're going to spend it with me."

"It's Friday," he says again.

Leaf shrugs. "We can take a three-day weekend if we want to." Then she pauses, studying his face. Her voice is softer when she speaks again. "Do you want to?"

"Yes," spills from his mouth with a speed that would be embarrassing if it weren't so true. He nods too, just to make sure there can be no ambiguity.

She laughs then and pulls him out of the dragon's den, away from the cave and into the light. "Come on," she says. "Let's go make some stories."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my betas [Icie](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Icie) and [Chromyrose](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/chromyrose). Comments/kudos are quite appreciated. Thank you for reading!


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